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Hi all, I'm grateful to have found this place. I have the feeling I'm going to stick around here for a while... My medication history is as follows: January 2010: start Lexapro 10mg for anxiety attacks due to college-related stress. History of health-OCD. Summer 2014: start tapering Lexapro February 2015: crash at 1.25mg Lexapro. 8 months of depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation. April 2015: reinstated 20mg Lexapro November 2015 - June 2021: tapered Lexapro from 20mg to 10mg 9th June 9 2021: crashed. Severe panic attacks, immediate suicidal ideation. Not sure whether this is from W/D since this happened at 10mg of Lexapro? Updosed to 12mg Lexapro. Updosed to 15mg Lexapro. 15 August 2021: hospitalised with severe clinical depression with OCD-treats. In 8 weeks time, doctors updose Lexapro to 20mg, then down again to 10mg. They add Seroquell up to 200mg (but got RLS because of this). Seroquell was stopped again. 15 October 2021: further hospitalised, where I follow therapies like CBT, DBT, MBT, MFN, ... 1 November 2021: doctors switch Lexapro to Paxil for ongoing anxiety and OCD. 1 week of 10mg, 2 weeks of 20mg. Helps with mood and energy but anxiety is still high. Feel mania-like. Sex drive highly increased when coming off the Lexapro, but by the time I reach a dose of 20mg Paxil, I feel completely numb. 29 November 2021: Paxil down again to 10mg. 2 December 2021: Paxil down to 5mg. 5 December 2021: 0mg Paxil. W/D starts with severe anxiety attacks, insomnia, inner restlessness, brain zaps, nausea, dizziness. 9 December 2021: reinstated 5mg Paxil. W/D symptoms reside, anxiety and despair remain. 24 December 2021: added 25mg Anafranil (clomipramine) for anxiety and OCD. After 2 doses, complete anhedonia sets in. I feel detached from everything and everyone. Also sex drive (arousal, libido) is completely lost, I fear for PSSD. 28 December 2021: take last dose of clomipramine 25mg. I had hoped that the anhedonia would be triggered by the clomipramine and that by quitting this, my feelings would return. Unfortunately I did not experience this. My guess is that the Paxil might cause this, as well as causing the complete loss of sex drive. 1 January 2022: quit 5mg Paxil (which I was on since about November 1 2021). Since then, I have had severe anhedonia (or DP/DR?). It scares the hell out of me, I feel so detached. I expect the other W/D symptoms will come as well... I again feel suicidal, but now in a more rational way. I cannot see myself living a life without emotions. For someone who's a HSP, this is the complete opposite of what I have always been. I really do not want to take the Paxil any longer, since it destroyed my sex drive and I fear it will continue to do this for as long as I take it. I'm also not sure whether I should reinstate anything, and which of these three meds? To make things even more complicated, the doctor at the hospital urged me to updose the clomipramine to 50mg. But I really don't dare to take it, since I was already so emotionally anesthetized at 25mg. I guess my main questions right now are: - Will this anhedonia go away? Is it likely to be medicine- of W/D-related? I never had this before, not even when struggling with depression. It feels so chemically induced. - Could I really have PSSD from only 6 weeks on Paxil? Is it likely that this will go away as well? - Should I reinstate? But which medicine, and at which dose? I really fear the anhedonia and the loss of libido and I am certain this is caused by the meds so I am very reluctant to take these again... It is so hard to realise what these drugs have taken away from me. I literally feel gutted now that my emotions are taken away from me. I feel there is nothing of me left anymore... I'm sure I will update here again when other W/D-symptoms come up. Thank you very much for any given support.

Hi, I realise this is a peer support network but I am the mum of a young adult daughter who has had a severe reaction to Sertraline. She is currently detained against her will in a psychiatric hospital and our need for help and advice on her behalf is immediate as I am fearful about the effect of compulsory treatment while she is there. I'll attempt to draw out the relevant parts of the chaotic and traumatic last 3 months.She was prescribed 50mg Sertraline for anxiety at the beginning of February by a general practioner. After 2 weeks she returned feeling unwell this was upped to 100mg, then shortly afterwards to 150mg. On even the lowest dose she immediately experienced extreme night sweats, restlessness and difficulty sleeping. She also became withdrawn from loved ones, snappy and cold. She looked drugged. She started self-medicating with excessive alcohol and cannabis and developed hypomania. After 6 weeks, during which she left her home and long-term partner, she called the police for help and was detained in the local psychiatric hospital. They put her through cold turkey on all substances. After a week they started her on 75mg Quetiapine per day plus Lorazepam and Zopliclone as they felt her state of mind required. After 3 weeks she was released with multiple boxes of all 3 drugs. She was still remote from us. After a week of clean-living with us (parents and sister) during which she began to taper the Quetiapine and didn't take the other medication, she left home claiming she needed to recover in her own way and resumed alcohol and cannabis misuse. Two weeks later she is detained in the psychiatric hospital again, very withdrawn and with signs of delusional beliefs. On admittance she tested positive for Cannabis and Lorazepam. They have resumed 75mg Quetiapine and, after a spell of disruptive behaviour, Lorazepam. She is currently in isolation with a permanent staff member having become violent and is not engaging with anyone. Her father and I have not succeeded in convincing the hospital doctors that the Sertraline prescription lay at the root of all this. We have repeatedlyreasserted the precise timing of the onset of her problems and have referred them to this site, to The British Journal of Psychiatry <http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/195/3/211>and to Katinka Blackford Newman's "The Pill That Steals Lives". One consultant is convinced that cannabis is entirely to blame despite being told that she has used it (and alcohol) previously without the ill effects.The chief consultant is looking for signs of underlying mental illness as the root cause of her problems. If anyone has ideas ideas on persuading clinicians I would be grateful. The main questions I have at the moment are: Given that she has shown extreme sensitivity to SSRIs, how dangerous for her are the Quetiapine and Lorazepam she is currently being given? It's likely that she will be started on another antipsychotic but neither she nor I will be consulted about this beforehand, so the question really extends to psychotropic drugs in general. Is it possible to tease out the effect of the Sertraline from the effects of the subsequent cannabis and alcohol use? How likely or possible is it that she had a latent, unsymptomatic mental illness that was triggered by the SSRI? Thank you for any advice. QueenieRose